Chagi's page

I know I said I was done, but I PMed someone who asked me to explain what I was on about more clearly, and thought I may as well paste here the following:

I say the following as a fan of fighters. It is not up for debate whether spellcasters outshine nonspellcasters. striking more accurately and more frequently with your weapon simply isn't in the same class as being able to teleport, fly, shapechange, travel the planes, control weather, scry, cast legend lore, body swap, create clones, use mind control, etc. and so on.

This is not controversial, it is widely accepted. I wasn't talking about the game from the perspective of a player or a GM, or talking about party composition or encounter design.

Having established that, I was asking people how characters themselves would adapt to and perceive this reality.

You know what guys? forget it. There are like two or three people who've posted that actually get what I'm talking about. I'm done.

Icyshadow wrote:

If it is a universal truth that Car X is better than Car Y, why would anyone not take Car X if offered?

That's kind of the dilemma here, which I tried to tell you about. It's why Roy is an in-joke, as you had pointed out.
He basically took Car Y despite everyone around him knowing that Car X is going to drive faster and safer than Car Y.

Well, the abilities of a specific character isn't really a consumer choice. The player might have considerations of whether a choice is optimal or not, the character don't.

Applying such a universal truth about game mechanics into a game world, is even more absurd than applying it to cars. While we actually could set up objective parameters for cars (safety, speed, comfort, fuel consumption, price, and more), people buy different cars, eventhough some of them are bound to be suboptimal.

What I'm saying is that it is a character choice. If your character already has the appropriate ability scores (and remember that these increase as you level) then training yourself to cast time stop (and assorted reality hacks, aka spells) is no more difficult than training yourself to be able to attack with a +17 BAB.

Why don't you think it can be done effectively in D&D/Pathfinder? Not trying to be antagonistic, just curious. I've seen it done quite a bit in the Dragonlance novels quite effectively.

I'm still not sure why you think a 20th level "mundane" (which I think is a misnomer) martial character could not exist in the game world. Is it because you think such a character would think "I'm too weak, I'm going to learn some magic?" or is it that you think they would be killed off before they got to high levels? Or is it something else entirely?

Also, when you say "the game world", do you mean Golarion or an abstract game world?

A character that has trouble bypassing DR because he refuses to use an enchanted sword or wear a belt of strength isn't really something that would fly at most tables. Not to mention that you don't even get anything for your trouble in return.

As to "mundane" I think it's a misnomer too, hence the quote marks. I just use the term as a kind of shorthand in reference too non-casters. When I say "the game world" I mean the world that is implied by the rules of the game. The rest may be inferred.

Oh, and if you want an example of a high-intelligence fighter, might I suggest Roy Greenhilt from the Order of the Stick webcomic for inspiration?

That's the thing though, Roy is kind of an in-joke about this topic. In the beginning of the series the joke is why would someone with high intelligence be a fighter when he could be a wizard?

I kind of make a point of never playing characters who actively dislike magic. IMO it is one concept that simply can't be done effectively in D&D/Pathfinder.

I'm still interested in whether 20th level "mundane" characters would even be a thing that exists in the game world, from an unbiased point of view.

Hypothetically, there probably are dedicated mage-killers in Golarion and presumably some of them have lasted long enough to get pretty epic. It's very likely they would make deals with other powerful figures to get the support they would need to ruin the day of their target (Any good combat strategist knows that good support is the key to winning a lot of fights). They would not go after the target caster alone and at 20th level of a long career they probably have all kinds of toys to back them up.

A good mage-killer would do his research and learn the weaknesses of the more dangerous magical-tactics so he could exploit them. This would likely take some extraordinary effort on his part since the higher level spells are definitely not common knowledge.

In the end, from an in-world perspective, casters have to nerf themselves somehow or else we'd end up accruing hundreds of Runelord knock-offs who'd spend their days bickering over territory.

That's kind of my point. I've played under GMs who take off the kid gloves when it comes to intelligent NPCs, and that what their worlds end up looking like. What I'm trying to figure out is, If I had a fighter whom I wanted to take to 20th, how could I even justify it? From an in character perspective (let's assume my fighter had sufficient intelligence to be a successful wizard, rolled stats) how could I justify him just choosing to keep on getting better with his sword?

First, they stock up on magic items. Lots of them. They pile on the contingency plans, the same way a wizard does, only theirs are in the form of trinkets they carry around. They max out UMD and try to have as many options as the magic-throwing nuts they're going up against.

Next, they try to limit their foes' mobility as much as possible. Dimensional Anchoring Ghost Touch Nets. Lassos of "Yer goin' Nowhere" (said like Macho Man). Anti-Magic fields. Rods of Disjunction. Spell Sunder.

High level martials are action movie heroes. The villains, and a lot of their allies even, always have them out gunned, outnumbered and outclassed. Martials win by sheer tenacious badassery. They refuse to die or quit and succeed by simply outlasting their enemies, harrying them and trapping them in a corner where the hero can finally get that one good sword blow into the slippery bad guy.

A couple of my favorite tricks-

Intelligent Bullets/Arrows/knives with a Bracelet of Friends. You and your pals have the charms. Stick the bad guy. If he teleports away, your intelligent ammo calls your party right along.

Rings of Counterspells with Timestop cast into them. Because seriously, screw that.

See, That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Icyshadow wrote:

Playing the Lich as an idiot and removing all the possible buffs he could have is unrealistic.

Since the Lich is a Wizard, it is assumed he has a massive Intelligence score by the time he hits 20, and would thus be smart enough to hide his phylactery in an insanely hard to reach place, probably filled with guards called with Planar Binding or other means.

Doesn't the point then become: A lich played cleverly, can always hide his phylactery in a impossible to find/get to location?

It is correct, if the GM choose to do it that way. But it might not make for a very good game.
We can always build encounters that the players are going to loose against without preparation.

It's not really the GMs "fault" at that point though, We're talking about creatures that are highly intelligent. If the GM refuses to do justice to those creatures in terms of how they are played and presented, He shouldn't be running them anyway, IMO. However, I'm not even really looking at it from a player/GM point of view in any case. More of a in world POV.

Playing the Lich as an idiot and removing all the possible buffs he could have is unrealistic.

Since the Lich is a Wizard, it is assumed he has a massive Intelligence score by the time he hits 20, and would thus be smart enough to hide his phylactery in an insanely hard to reach place, probably filled with guards called with Planar Binding or other means.

Yeah, I figure a 20th level Lich is going to have an int of 30-ish. At that point (and even before) anything anyone at the table can even come up with is fair game.

Icyshadow wrote:

Playing the Lich as an idiot and removing all the possible buffs he could have is unrealistic.

Since the Lich is a Wizard, it is assumed he has a massive Intelligence score by the time he hits 20, and would thus be smart enough to hide his phylactery in an insanely hard to reach place, probably filled with guards called with Planar Binding or other means.

most wizards don't have the charisma to control planar bound minions. many of them dump it as low as 7, or even 5. try to control a bound or gated balor with that. not so easy.

Lichs and old people get charisma bonuses. A venerable lich gets +5 charisma.

I'm going to go ahead and nip this in the bud.

They don't, at high levels casters entirely outpace martials and there is not a way to balance it without reworking the entire system.

That's not what I asked though. I'm asking about this from an in world perspective.

I've been thinking about how martials fit into the game at high levels. In games which reach high levels the whole system changes. I've only played into the upper levels once, with a loremaster wizard, and boy was it different. Scry and fry, major teleport shenanigans, Contingency spells, two wizards and a cleric casting about 5-6 spells a round between them, clones and so on and so forth.

How does a 20th barbarian/fighter/ranger/etc, deal with the world of high level play? Essentially, according to the game, a party of martials should be able to take on a single 20th level wizard lich, But how could they? consider the following example:

Assume that somehow they find the lich in the first place, They enter the room and then, 1, the casts time stop, delayed blast fireball twice, timed to coincide with time stop ending, casts teleport, arrives, fireballs go off, casts every buff (repulsion, stoneskin, invisibility statue, etc) on himself, casts time stop again, greater teleports back to adventurers, casts summon monster 8 twice, time stop ends, opens with dominate person followed by quickened dominate person and then combat begins.

If they somehow manage to actually injure him, a contingency spell will likely whisk him off to safety, if they somehow manage to kill him, then they have 1d10 IIRC days before he's back and pissed. Since his phylactery is probably on another plane. Either way he can hunt them with magic at his leisure, taking out one at a time when they're least ready for it.

So my question is basically what does a 20th level fighter do in the face of this kind of opposition, from an in character point of view? Do 20th level fighters even exist? How would they see themselves from an in character perspective? How would they protect themselves from these sort of shenanigans?

Chagi wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

So you know every possible rule off the top of your head and know exactly what the RAI is for them all?

Well yippee for you.

Yeah that is what I said isn't it. Wait what?

No, I'm talking about the kind of groups that will shout you down for daring to interrupt the "flow" of the game by pointing out when the GM gets something wrong that is very obvious and clear-cut, and not a house-rule either, like for example, the shield spell protecting someone's character from magic missiles. Really happened btw.

I figured you were chiming in on what Ninja was responding to.

Which was a GM making a call mid-game when nobody knows the rule or where to find it off the top of their head instead of interrupting everything to go look it up.

To which he responded that it would be bad if that got a player killed.

I was. Sorry, but that isn't the situation Ninja was talking about.

I've figured out there's a near-perfect way to deal with this.

1. Player calls out bad rule
2. GM makes a decision on which way to go "for now"
3. Player accepts temporary ruling (this is the part you're having trouble with, but explain this process out)
4. Game ends
5. Now, let's look up how that rule should work

That's what Ninja was responding to. Notice point 1.

So you know every possible rule off the top of your head and know exactly what the RAI is for them all?

Well yippee for you.

Yeah that is what I said isn't it. Wait what?

No, I'm talking about the kind of groups that will shout you down for daring to interrupt the "flow" of the game by pointing out when the GM gets something wrong that is very obvious and clear-cut, and not a house-rule either, like for example, the shield spell protecting someone's character from magic missiles. Really happened btw.

If you're in a situation where death is possible, that's all the more reason to take 3 minutes to get the rule right then and there, rather than having to come up with nonsensical retcons or redo hours later.

No kidding. I'll never understand why so many people are seemingly averse to to actually, you know, knowing the rules of the game they're playing.

Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:

Wrath wrote:

In any AP where social settings are used (in a town or city say), the wizard with low wisdom, low charisma and low strength is a walking time bomb. He's a scrawny kid with aloud mouth and. No common sense who feels his superior intelligence needs to be shouted to the world and it would land him in trouble all the time.

I suspect players who build low stats like this don't play to their characteristics though. Many folk who claim to better players tend to do this in fact. They deliberately gimp areas for power in their preferred stats then use player knowledge and ability to overcome those situations where the characters stats would screw him.

If GM's are allowing that to happen, then they're baby sitting their players.

Cheers

if a concept offends you as the dungeon master, and you really don't want to deal with it, don't try to punish the Player IC, just say Veto the character and tell the player to make a few changes.

a 7 or few in reasonable stats is fine, such as for example, an anemic and scrawny bard i played who dumped strength and constitution down to 7. she was anemic and refused to drink milk nor eat liverwurst. so she was also short and highly physically underdeveloped for her age.

We limit it to one stat no less than 8 in our games.

I am not offended by people building these characters, but I insist they play to their stats. I also make NPCs interact in similar ways, and interact with p layers based on impressions fro stats.

Bullies, for example, are going to target the wizard I spoke of earlier, everytime. He's scrawny, isn't wise enough to know when to shut up, and has all the charisma of a wet paper bag. I suspect that given enough time around him, most folk would feel he deserved a smack in the mouth just to stop him thinking he was so much better than the rest of them " cos of all his fancy book learning"

However, I get the distinct impression that players who build characters like that don't...

First, there is more than one way to play the same array. Maybe he is just extremely absent minded, and is very drab and unappealing, lacking any confidence, personal magnetism or leadership ability.

second, a bully might think twice about targeting someone who could easily put them on their back with something like Colour spray or sleep, which that high int will help doing.

Edit: Ack, I've been ninja'd.

Chagi wrote:

calagnar wrote:

At level 10 unless your above a 35 AC it means nothing. Most things with a CR 10 have over a +20 to hit. Unless it's a caster. Light armor is worth more as it lest you keep evasion. And at this level that will mitigate more damage then 9 points of AC.

Example
Fire Giant CR 10
Melee greatsword +21/+16/+11 (3d6+15) or 2 slams +20 (1d8+10)

I am very well acquainted with the mechanics of high-level AC. At low levels AC can entirely negate attacks, but by that same token, you don't deal with multiple attacks at low levels, typically. Because attack bonuses rise to the point where they can usually hit you once, regardless, many people undervalue AC at high levels.

The purpose of AC at higher levels is to mitigate the impact of full attacks, not negate them outright.

+16 vs AC 29 requires a roll of 13 to hit.
vs AC 20 it only needs a roll of 4. That's a huge difference.

+11 vs 29, needs a roll of 18.
vs 20, a roll of 9.

By using that example you proved my point.

Also note that I have a minor cloak of displacement, granting always on 20% concealment against attacks.

At level 8, my builds were at 36 AC. Pretty sure that by level 10 they'll be at 40 (29k more magic items, a feat, a rogue talent, and an extra sneak attack die). Also, they have 2 built in ways to negate melee attacks that manage to hit.

Rogues can tank.

-Cross

Yep, I know that AC 29 is nothing to write home about, and I have already stated that I think that the "build" I posted wasn't up to my own standards. I was pointing out that 20 AC isn't enough for a tank, that it's worth it to invest in it even if you can't hit the 35 AC mark that Calagnar mentioned.

It's for "battle-clerics" who would never waste their turn channeling when they could be full attacking, use their negative channel on their full-attack.

For most clerics, it's not worth taking, for those who it is worth taking, there is no reason not to take it.

At level 10 unless your above a 35 AC it means nothing. Most things with a CR 10 have over a +20 to hit. Unless it's a caster. Light armor is worth more as it lest you keep evasion. And at this level that will mitigate more damage then 9 points of AC.

Example
Fire Giant CR 10
Melee greatsword +21/+16/+11 (3d6+15) or 2 slams +20 (1d8+10)

I am very well acquainted with the mechanics of high-level AC. At low levels AC can entirely negate attacks, but by that same token, you don't deal with multiple attacks at low levels, typically. Because attack bonuses rise to the point where they can usually hit you once, regardless, many people undervalue AC at high levels.

The purpose of AC at higher levels is to mitigate the impact of full attacks, not negate them outright.

+16 vs AC 29 requires a roll of 13 to hit.
vs AC 20 it only needs a roll of 4. That's a huge difference.

+11 vs 29, needs a roll of 18.
vs 20, a roll of 9.

By using that example you proved my point.

Also note that I have a minor cloak of displacement, granting always on 20% concealment against attacks.

Chagi wrote:

Psion-Psycho wrote:

Offensive Defensive + whip + whirlwind + lung = o snap u cant touch this.

Yeah, good luck with that CMB. 'Cause that's what you'll need. Luck.

Edit: It's a whip so I assume you're trying to trip and disarm stuff. Which even Fighters have trouble with once you get to mid to high levels.

No tripping just hitting them all to tiger Offensive Defense.

You realize that whips don't actually deal damage to anything with natural armour, or wearing armour right? I'm also not sure how you'd be triggering sneak attack in the first place. You just flail around with a whip dealing no damage being ignored until the enemies can deal with you at their leisure.

Edit: ah, you posted while I was writing. I'm still not a fan of that build though. for a few reasons.

Just off the top of my head.

(20 Point buy)
Dwarf Rogue 9 Barbarian 1
Str 19 (17+2 level 4, & 8) + 4 enhancement = Str 23
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 12
Wis 10
Cha 8
HP 95 (using PFSP rules)
Speed : 30ft
AC 20
Mithral Breast Plate +3
Initiative : + 7
Fort : 11
Ref : 10
Will : 6
Hardy + Glory of Old = +3 Sv. spell, spell-like ability's, and poison
Cloak of resistance +3
Great Axe +3 To Hit + 17 Damage 1D12+12
Great Axe W/ Power Attack To Hit + 15 Damage 1D12+18
Sneak Attack 5D6
Trait's
1: Reactionary
2: Glory of Old
Feat's
1: Improved Initiative
3: Toughness
5: Power Attack
7: Furious Focus
9: Weapon Focus: Great Axe

You can deal damage with that build, but I'm not sure it's defensively sound. My build has the same number of hit points, AC is 9 points higher, 20% concealment and DR 3 and I still think he's squishy. You've got better saves though.

Offensive Defensive + whip + whirlwind + lung = o snap u cant touch this.

Yeah, good luck with that CMB. 'Cause that's what you'll need. Luck.

Edit: It's a whip so I assume you're trying to trip and disarm stuff. Which even Fighters have trouble with once you get to mid to high levels.

This is pretty normal really. It's even fun sometimes. ;p

I can't believe I forgot about crane style. There goes the old build down the drain probably.

Anyway, Here's a very rough look (at tenth, and assuming I have WBL gear) at some of the basics of what I had in mind. I'm sure the rest of it may be inferred. As a disclaimer, I'm not super familiar with stuff beyond the core guide.

Dwarf Rogue 10

STR 17(19 with enhancement)
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 12
WIS 12
CHA 6

HP 94-ish
AC 29

Adamantine full-plate
a minor cloak of displacement
and and a bunch AC boosting knick-knacks and so on.

Offensively, this character relies on using Chill touch through the major magic talent, since that allows us to bypass the accuracy issue somewhat. After he's exhausted this ability he uses a battleaxe, but that's significantly less effective.

I would take feats for proficiency since multiclassing defeats the purpose of this exercise, and why even bother with the rogue at that point anyway?

I'm sure it can be done much better by someone else. His AC is too low for my taste and he also doesn't hit hard enough for my taste either.

Also, I should tell you folks that I'm on the Public Wi-Fi internet plan ^_^, so even if my posting is sporadic, I'll get around to it eventually.

If you forgo the sneak attack for armor proficiency your just a 3/4 bab guy in armor really. Not that threatening.

Not sneak attack, the sneaky, as in the whole stealthy rogue shtick.Who wants to get ganked sneaking around away from the party anyway?

A flank is all you need for sneak attack.

I assume you are intended to get it only once per foe each round, but the wording is ambiguous and you'll need all the help you can get, so may as well go with a "RAW" reading that it stacks. ;)

And when someone says "tank", I think of being able to take/avoid hits and being able to draw aggro and/or locking down the area around you. Either way, premise is someone who is hard to kill and has a means of forcing enemies to fight him instead of the squishies.

Not damage so much. In any case, a well built Fighter or Barbarian can roughly match a Rogue for damage even when he's sneak attacking, and are much hardier, too. All the dice may look like a lot of damage, but it's only 3.5 on average per d6. A 2-handing melee person is getting +3 damage per -1 to hit from power attack alone, plus high base weapon damage, plus 1.5x str to damage, plus other bonuses like fighter's weapon training and specialization.

I mentioned damage thinking of it as a way of encouraging things to try and mash you to goo.

I have to get going, but maybe I'll have a build when I get back ^_^

I get that a rogue isn't going to out-tank a barbarian, but building a barb as your tank is boring and easy, whereas building a rogue to tank is challenging and interesting.

Another option would be to completely forgo the sneaky and pick up armour proficiency.

Well, I was thinking they get damage built right into the class, and you get evasion, defensive roll, slippery mind, can use the shield spell with a talent, plus other stuff I guess. I suppose being a dwarf would help out with hit points and saves. I don't have a build yet, I'm just brain-storming.

Offensive defense seems kind of ambiguous, does it mean it stacks with every sneak attack you make? Or are you just suppose to get it once?

I've seen so many Rogues get absolutely trashed by retaliating (insert big-hitting monster here) after they've made their standard TWF-ing sneak attack routine that it occurred to me that if they could survive those attacks they'd make great tanks. Could it be done? and would it be worth it?